Strategist Article Archives - Page 1131 of 1186

Afghanistan: not over yet

25 June 2013

The tragic death of Corporal Cameron Baird—killed in action in the Khod Valley in southern Afghanistan—and the wounding of two other ADF personnel, reminds an Australia reluctant to pay attention that the war in Afghanistan isn’t over yet. According to Defence Minister Stephen Smith, around 1,000 troops will be withdrawn by the end of the year. Based on the Minister’s statement to Parliament on 19 June, it looks as though at least 650 personnel will remain in country during 2014. After that, the Minister assesses there will be around 125 ADF trainers divided between Kabul and Kandahar and an undetermined number of staff embedded with the International security Assistance Force (ISAF)—there are currently over 100—as well as a possible continuing Special Forces role.

In short, even though everyone’s eyeing the exit signs, the reality is that Australia is committed for another eighteen months to an operation that will be every bit as large as, say, our Iraq deployment. Beyond 2014, we’ll also be there in appreciable numbers for the long haul. Our involvement will be every bit as long as Prime Minister Gillard speculated back in 2010: ‘for the next decade at least.’ In all likelihood, casualties will continue. Read more

Orwell’s dilemma: more reflections on intelligence oversight

25 June 2013

When the moment finally came, Eric Arthur Blair (or, as he’s better known to history, the author George Orwell) had no doubt. The Eton-educated writer did his duty. He handed a list of 38 names—all, he believed, ‘crypto-communists, fellow travellers, or inclined that way’—to a female friend who was working for the Foreign Office. It was a blacklist; people he believed couldn’t be trusted to write anti-communist propaganda.

What makes the list significant is that Orwell wasn’t a nationalist who believed in his country, ‘right or wrong’. He’d fought for the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War; was rejected by the British army (on medical grounds) in World War II; and wrote for the left-wing weekly newspaper Tribune instead. His entire life was about choice and commitment.

Hence the list. Given the choice, Orwell didn’t hesitate before committing himself to British democracy rather than Stalinist orthodoxy. Despite his intense and unremitting opposition to the class-based society he’d savaged in books like The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell knew life in Britain was preferable to the grim Soviet alternative. So the author turned informant (although the fact that he really happened to fancy the woman asking for the information might have swayed his mind as well). Read more

Once more around the Cape?

24 June 2013

The first Cape Class Patrol Boat undertaking sea trials off Austal’s Henderson shipyard. The boat was officially named Cape St George at a ceremony on March 15, 2013.

One of the capability announcements made along with the launch of the 2013 Defence White Paper was that ‘the Government will also bring forward the replacement of Australia’s Armidale Class Patrol Boats, with both Australia’s patrol boats and the Pacific Patrol Boats being replaced preferably by proven designs’.

The same day saw the launch of the Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan, which extols the virtues of rolling production programs for reducing overall costs and keeping shipyards working efficiently. There’s no doubt that when the total production run is large enough, rolling production provides economies of scale through the ‘learning effect‘ as the workforce becomes more practised. And as I’ve noted in a previous post, a lot of that has to do with retention of experienced and thus more efficient labourers. Read more

A glass half-full? US–China strategic dialogue

24 June 2013

The limited interaction of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the outside world has been a major source of concern related to China’s military rise. Of particular worry is the fact that there still isn’t any substantial strategic dialogue between the US and China. Their ‘Strategic and Economic Dialogue’ has been rather superficial and subject to being cancelled on occasion. But recent signs are that both sides see the need to deepen the dialogue.

As PACOM Commander Admiral Samuel Locklear recently pointed out, Sino-US relations will remain competitive and miscommunications could become a serious issue during crisis. Managing crises requires both sides establishing clear lines of strategic communications, ‘rules of the road’, and mutual understanding about each other’s signals. Otherwise, the consequences could be disastrous. While both sides don’t have to love each other, they have to understand each other, including where they differ. It’s therefore encouraging that American and Chinese analysts are engaged in an increasingly open and frank discussion on these issues. A deepening web of 1.5 and 2-track US–China strategic dialogue is emerging. The CSIS Pacific Forum, for example, has organised a 1.5 track dialogue with Chinese counterparts on strategic issues, including military-to-military relations and, for the first time this year, a China–US Dialogue on Space Security. Read more

Australian intelligence organisations: the limits of oversight

24 June 2013

Andrew Davies valuable post calls attention to the range of watchdog mechanisms holding Australia’s intelligence agencies to account. It also asks why Australians don’t know much about these checks and balances. I would suggest that’s partly because of Australia’s unusually high level of secrecy on intelligence matters, and also because our watchdog mechanisms fall short when compared to some other liberal democracies.

For example, the US Congress has multiple committees (PDF) overseeing intelligence agencies and scrutinising their operations, and these committees require notification of all covert actions (PDF). Our sole comparable committee, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has a much more limited role. It has no oversight of actual operations, and in fact has a lengthy list of things it can’t do (see footnote).

As a result, our Parliament rarely has the sort of media-friendly confrontations over intelligence matters that the US Congress sometimes has, which contributes to the lack of public awareness about intelligence oversight. It also calls into question whether, as Andrew argues, ‘Australians are pretty well served by the watchdog mechanisms in place’. I’m less confident than him that we are, because there’s a limited amount of publically available information on which to base such a judgment. Read more

Asian gazing (9): South China Sea

23 June 2013

For ASEAN, the Philippines has become the canary in the mine in testing how much more poisonous the atmosphere with China can become in the South China Sea. By taking China before the bar of international law (and international opinion), Manila has got well out ahead of the rest of ASEAN.

The man on point is always at greatest danger of being shot, and the Philippines is feeling both exposed and righteous. See Stuart McMillan’s description of the Philippines as both bold and alone in taking China to an international tribunal over its nine-dash line on a map claiming sovereignty over vast areas of the South China Sea.

The sense of ASEAN crisis I referred to in my previous post has much to do with the uncertainty about how hard China will keep pushing. To see how excruciating this is for the Philippines, come and inspect the body language and the actual language of a Shangri-La session on ‘New Trends in Asia Pacific Security’. Read more

The Southeast Asian emphasis in DWP2013

21 June 2013

Defence White Paper 2013 breaks new ground in a number of areas—but at the big picture level, the most striking aspect of the paper is its revaluation of Southeast Asia. In place of the vague threat of yesteryear, we’re presented with a region of strategic importance to Australia and a set of prospective partners in joint endeavours. At a number of points across the paper, Southeast Asia looms as the new player on Australia’s strategic landscape. It is depicted as ‘central’ to our concerns about the broader Indo-Pacific. And its new status is reflected in the priority accorded to it in Chapter 6 on international engagements, where the authors proceed directly to Southeast Asian linkages after covering the US relationship and the specifics of the ANZUS alliance. Relationships with North Asia come later, and those with Indian Ocean countries later still.

Striking, and novel, in the paper is the identification of Indonesia as a ‘significant regional power’ in the Indo-Pacific (paras 2.8, 2.31, and 3.20). In the opening paragraph of the document it’s listed among the countries that have ‘transformed within a generation’. In the next chapter it’s portrayed as ‘an increasingly influential democratic regional power and emerging global influence’. As our assessment of Indonesia has changed, so too has our view of our own partnership with Jakarta. Our relationship with Indonesia is variously described as ‘our most important defence relationship in the region’ (para 6.28) or some variant thereof. Para 3.17 says that ‘the stability and security of Indonesia, our largest near neighbour, is of singular importance.’ The security futures of Australia and Indonesia are described as ‘intertwined’. Gone, in a change from past practice, is the tendency to group Indonesia alongside other immediate neighbours, such as Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the micro-states of the South Pacific. Read more

ASPI suggests

21 June 2013

*Stop Press*

In the still developing story of NSA’s Prism program (see Toby Feakin on The Strategist earlier this week if you missed it), the Guardian newspaper has published the classified ‘rules’ that NSA follows in using intercepts of American’s conversations. These are the equivalent of the rules to protect Australians that appeared at the end of Andrew Davies’ Strategist post on intelligence oversight on Thursday. As the New York Times observes:

[Administration comments to Americans that] ‘nobody is listening to your telephone calls’ left out what NSA officials have long called “incidental” collection of Americans’ calls and e-mails—the routine capture of Americans’ communications in the process of targeting foreign communications.

This week at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin President Obama said that:

After a comprehensive review, I’ve determined that we can ensure the security of America and our allies, and maintain a strong and credible strategic deterrent, while reducing our deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third.

Amphibious lift – a catalyst for increasing jointery

20 June 2013

Let me reply to the Related Posts (linked below) in this lengthening conversation on amphibious operations. I’ll reply mainly without restating arguments.

The DWP2013 gives weight to combat operations, seeing a role for amphibious ships ‘in some circumstances’ across the spectrum of operations. Defence will therefore need to expand its amphibious horizons further along the spectrum to meet government direction. It seems to be hard to hold the view, as Andrew Davies does, that ‘reality (that is limited tasking for the LHDs) has intervened’. This reality is defence setting themselves reasonable initial objectives, but that shouldn’t be where they stop.

The operations envisaged by DWP2013 require confidence that ships and troops will be not face unreasonable risk. Amphibious operations are likely to be conducted as part of power projection. The level of protection given to the amphibious part of power projection might have to be substantial (conceptually, no problem there) and the time it takes to establish the pre-conditions might be long. You have to make the assumption that someone with some operational nous (an experienced joint Operator) is defining the strategy in to which the power projection fits and of which amphibious operations is part. If you use any capability stupidly, you’ll lose it. Read more

Refugee Convention: the perils of leaving

20 June 2013

In the Financial Review last week, Anthony Bergin put forward some ideas to ‘stop the boats’. Unfortunately, his immodest proposals for changes to Australian asylum laws aren’t evidence based. In particular, the suggestion that Australia should withdraw from the refugee convention is misplaced. Most asylum-seekers don’t know of the Convention and international research shows that asylum seekers have minimal to no knowledge of asylum destination countries policies. But even if it were true, the question is—what’s the cost to the international norms which might one day protect us and our global reputation? The AFR is doing the debate no favours by printing misleading information about the 1951 Refugee Convention.

There are a number of reasons to reject the proposal. First, our asylum system hasn’t ‘crumbled’. New OECD figures show that in 2012, Australia ranked only 11th of 34 OECD countries in the number of people arriving and applying for asylum. Even with the increased arrivals this year, Australia isn’t experiencing a refugee ‘crisis’ based on any objective comparator. Jordan, for example, has been a major recipient of Syrians fleeing a conflict that has killed 97,000 people, with 1,000 to 2,000 new arrivals daily. Jordan was already hosting large numbers of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees. Developing countries overwhelmingly bear the burden of hosting refugees. Read more